Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (Anniversary Edition)
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (Anniversary Edition)

Author: Stephen Greenblatt

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2010-05-03

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0393079848

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Named One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, reissued with a new afterword for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world’s greatest playwright.

King Lear
King Lear

Author: Jeffrey Kahan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-04-18

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1135973652

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Is King Lear an autonomous text, or a rewrite of the earlier and anonymous play King Leir? Should we refer to Shakespeare’s original quarto when discussing the play, the revised folio text, or the popular composite version, stitched together by Alexander Pope in 1725? What of its stage variations? When turning from page to stage, the critical view on King Lear is skewed by the fact that for almost half of the four hundred years the play has been performed, audiences preferred Naham Tate's optimistic adaptation, in which Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after. When discussing King Lear, the question of what comprises ‘the play’ is both complex and fragmentary. These issues of identity and authenticity across time and across mediums are outlined, debated, and considered critically by the contributors to this volume. Using a variety of approaches, from postcolonialism and New Historicism to psychoanalysis and gender studies, the leading international contributors to King Lear: New Critical Essays offer major new interpretations on the conception and writing, editing, and cultural productions of King Lear. This book is an up-to-date and comprehensive anthology of textual scholarship, performance research, and critical writing on one of Shakespeare's most important and perplexing tragedies. Contributors Include: R.A. Foakes, Richard Knowles, Tom Clayton, Cynthia Clegg, Edward L. Rocklin, Christy Desmet, Paul Cantor, Robert V. Young, Stanley Stewart and Jean R. Brink

Contested Will
Contested Will

Author: James Shapiro

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-04-19

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 1416541632

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Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

This Is Shakespeare
This Is Shakespeare

Author: Emma Smith

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2020-03-31

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1524748552

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An electrifying new study that investigates the challenges of the Bard’s inconsistencies and flaws, and focuses on revealing—not resolving—the ambiguities of the plays and their changing topicality A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn’t tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant. In This Is Shakespeare, Emma Smith—an intellectually, theatrically, and ethically exciting writer—takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting, as we watch Shakespeare emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd (the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day), flirting with and skirting around the cutthroat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval, and technological change. Smith writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity, and sex. Instead of offering the answers, the Shakespeare she reveals poses awkward questions, always inviting the reader to ponder ambiguities.

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

Author: Ari Berk

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 17

ISBN-13: 0763647942

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Describes Shakespeare's experiences in London and his retirement to the country in a fictional account that includes excerpts from his works.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

Author: James Shapiro

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 618

ISBN-13: 0061840904

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Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize’s 25th Anniversary Winner of Winners award What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, "succeed[ing] where others have fallen short." (Boston Globe) 1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.